Originally Posted by
Buksida
A constitution may help the rise of a political party, but it cannot produce one.
What does this even
mean?
Originally Posted by
Buksida
The 1997 Edition was the best one yet, it lead to political stability, but when sections were ignored there was no civil society or opposition capable of tackling the abuses.
Not so much sections "ignored" as skillfully exploited by a politician who was very adept at it. Certainly, any constitution as advanced as the 1997 version requires equally advanced (i.e. effective) checks and balances to work properly. Self-evidently, those weren't and aren't functioning adequately in Thailand - yet.
Originally Posted by
Buksida
Power became concentrated, amendments were suggested, however these were not in the Govt's interest as democracy was no their goal.
Speaking of amendments, just what happened to Abhisit's promise to later reform the flawed 2007 constitution when he spoke in support of it during the referendum? And I don't mean just the token fiddling with it that finally emerged - much of which was seen as intended to benefit just his own party.
Sabang's two posts (950 & 954) state it very well IMO - particularly the first one. The road to anything like democracy is always a long and stony ride - complete with stops, re-starts and frequent reverses. Surely what matters is to identify the route which gives the best/least bad prospect (never a guarantee) of arriving at the destination the soonest?
It strikes me that those who are so negative (to the point of appearing almost completely nihilist) about the current stage of this obstacle-strewn process seem to be looking for some panacea that almost instantly transforms the situation from badly flawed to near-perfect. Not finding that panacea, they seem to write off the prospect of
any progress no matter how slight and, yes, very likely impermanent.
The majority of major political/social advances (whether revolutionary or evolutionary) are like this - a cycle of start-stop-reverse-forward over an extended period. Why is there such a belief that Thailand should be some amazing exception to this well-established pattern? It seems to produce a get nowhere attitude somewhere between "a plague on
all your houses" and tipping out the weak infant with the bathwater.
Self-evidently, Thailand is
not blessed with having all the right elements in place simply waiting for someone or something to assemble them into that great, perfect - and mythical - thing labeled "true democracy". Like every other nation, it can only try to improve on the very imperfect prototype lash-ups step by stumbling step.